No matter what I do, these things kill off pepper plants in my south facing garden window. They do not bother any of my other plants, just pepper plants. I’ve been spraying them once a week with a soapy insecticide, but they seem to multiply no matter what I do. Soapy water, insecticides, trying to remove them manually with a sponge. Nothing works.

Maybe some kind of aphids?

That would be my guess too.Do a google search for aphids on pepper plants.Lots of suggestions.

Spray your plants with rubbing alcohol. That makes them drunk, they fall and hit their heads and die from brain contusions.

Aphids are what I thought they were, but my other half thinks they might be some kind of mite.

a dish soap and water solution may be more effective than a commercial insecticide:

Mix together 1 tablespoon of dish soap and 1 quart of water, or 5 tablespoons of soap per 1 gallon of water if you have a lot of plants to spray. Mix the solution thoroughly, and pour it into a clean spray bottle.

Aphids live in the soil, so unless you repot the plant, they’re going to keep returning whenever you get them off the leaves.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
Spray your plants with rubbing alcohol. That makes them drunk, they fall and hit their heads and die from brain contusions.

After you spray with rubbing alcohol, toss some sand on there.
Lil bastards get drunk and stone each other to death.
It seems to work with crabs.

Sevin? Seems to work on little critters that get on my plants. Its a powder. Good luck!!

See if you can buy some Ladybugs to release into your garden.

Those look to me like a species of mealybugs. As Arc and others have mentioned, Neem or an isopropyl alcohol/water mix can be effective.

Use some diatomaceous earth, it will kill those little bastards. Safe to use, absolutely non-toxic. Dust the plants with it. If you can't find it in your local area, I will send you a large container of it at no cost to you. Email me.

The truth is out there.

Ha ^^^. Good episode.

I had similar problems on my pepper plants, it I’m pretty sure I had aphids.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder:
Try Neem Oil.

I have used Neem oil outdoors but man does it stink.

I was also going to suggest diatomaceous earth.
When they eat it, it is like ground glass in their stomachs.

And, believe it or not, LADY Bugs might also work. My Dad used to make wine and the fruit flies were awfully bad. A friend of my Mom brought over a Lady Bug and the fruit flies were no more.

Which insecticides have you tried?

I organically grow tomatoes, peppers, etc. The program that had been working the last 3 years is:

Three out of 4 weeks, I spray with Neem & Actinovate.

The 4th week, I spray with Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew (spinosad).

In October, I ended up getting a mold/fungus from some GD aphids on my peppers which caused me to read a bunch. What put me over the top on the bastards was Garden Safe Brand Insecticidal Soap followed up the next day with Neem and Bonide Sticker/spreader and doing this once a week for 3 straight weeks. I had been using a couple drops of Dr. Bronner's as a surfactant but it wasn't enough due to Houston's hard water. The Bonide Sticker/spreader kept the Neem on the leaves much better than Dr. Bronner's.

I had just repotted the plant last week, so fresh soil. I think these things like hot weather (south facing garden window) and pepper plants. They don’t bother anything else in the garden window.

I have never heard of diatomaceous earth, but did some research and watched some videos on it and decided against it for now.

I have been using a soapy insecticide that seems useless and I just ran out of it. I also did a lot of research last night and decided that these are aphids. So, I headed to the store today and ended up with some Neem Oil as pictured below. Right now the plant shows no signs of aphids as I cleaned them off as well as I could with a sponge before I applied the soapy insecticide, but I’m sure they will be back. My other pepper plant is much bigger with much smaller leaves and is more difficult to clean off. Below is what I bought today and is what I will use in a few days.